Tuesday’s Cloud Seeding

I Am Alex, You Are Alex

All of us have friends and family who still belong to cult *rump. My experience is that once one is indoctrinated into the bosom of MAGA, there is no arguing or debating that bears any fruit. If the murders of two citizens by this regime in the past weeks, along with 9 other non-white people this year, doesn’t change minds…

The gist of it is with Republican talking points is that Renée Good, Alex Pretti, and all the others HAD IT COMING. Joseph Goebbels and Roy Cohn are in bed somewhere, smoking cigars, saying “good job.”

Jay Kuo breaks it down with images and videos if you want to deep dive into the arguments against Miller, Bovino, and Noem’s public lying. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem falsely alleged that Pretti “approached Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic gun” and claimed, without basis, that he had “arrived to inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement.”

And Lee Papa reared his head with the videos of Pretti’s killing, shot as many as ten times while on his knees and then on his back, left no room at all through which you could squeeze your ideological blinders. It was clear that the gun Pretti legally was carrying was taken from him before the shooting and that he had never had it in his hand to threaten the BP officers who had shoved a woman to the ground and pepper-sprayed her and Pretti. It doesn’t help the disinformation campaign in full swing now that Pretti was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, beloved by his co-workers and patients. Every single video analysis shows that he was filming ICE and BP actions as a legal observer (as all observers are), not interfering in any way, and the porcine chodes in their douche vests and punk ass masks decided to fuck with him and the woman near him. The chodes surround him and beat him as he tries to cover up from the blows and then one of the chodes pistol whips him after another chode takes his gun. Every single video analysis shows the gun being taken. Every single video shows he was not a threat. Every single video shows he was fucking executed like it was a mob hit, just like Renee Good. The Border Patrol and ICE are a bunch of gutless thugs who want to murder some libs and don’t have the balls to try without a uniform on. 

Even the fucking Libertarian Party has condemned Noem, and Kuo goes on to write that even the NRA, which is supposed to be there precisely to stop the government from disarming and killing citizens, finally came out with a statement condemning the claim that law enforcement is legally justified in shooting you simply because you approach them with a gun. (Pretti was licensed to carry his firearm, and Minnesota law permits people to have one on their person while in public.)

HCR posted that even the editorial boards of both Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and his New York Post urged the administration to pause its ICE operations in Minneapolis after the killing of Alex Pretti. The Wall Street Journal’s famously right-wing editorial board warned that “[t]he Trump Administration spin on this simply isn’t believable.” It continued: “Ms. Noem and Mr. Miller aren’t credible spokesmen. Their social-media and cable-TV strategy is to own the libs, rather than to persuade Americans. This is backfiring against Republicans…. Mr. Miller’s mass deportation methods are turning immigration, an issue Mr. Trump owned in 2024, into a political liability for Republicans in 2026. Americans don’t want law enforcement shooting people in the street or arresting five-year-old boys.”

While we mourn the deaths of Good and Pretti, nine others have been killed this year alone by ICE. They are Keith Porter, Parady La, Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, Victor Manuel Diaz, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, and Geraldo Lunas Campos.

The Atlantic reported yesterday that the Nazi dress-up honcho, Gregory Bovino, has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.

Meanwhile, according to Ken Klippenstein, reports that he’s listened to the stories and the beefs of immigration officers in Minneapolis across the country, and to a person, they all blame the shooter, one of their own. The major media is stuck on framing the killing of Alex Pretti as some national and partisan battle, highlighting Republicans breaking ranks, the NRA protesting, MAGA wavering, and Chuck Schumer doing whatever he’s doing, but no one is really capturing what the federal law enforcement officers on the ground are thinking. The truth is that they’re fed up and have been for weeks.

Even a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, Chris Madel, dropped out of the race calling *rump’s surge an “unmitigated disaster.” “I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state,” Madel said. “Nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.” He, too, spoke truth to power, saying that U.S. citizens, “particularly those of color, live in fear.”

Small victories.

I’ll leave you with the words of Bernice King, daughter of Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr., with some advice going forward:

1. Don’t use his name; EVER (45 or 47 will do)
2. Remember this is a regime and he’s not acting alone;
3. Do not argue with those who support him--it doesn’t work;
4. Focus on his POLICIES, not his orange-ness and his mental state;
5. Keep your message positive; they want the country to be angry and fearful because
this is the soil from which their darkest policies will grow;
6. No more helpless/hopeless talk;
7. Support artists and the arts;
8. Be careful not to spread fake news. Check it;
9. Take care of yourselves; And
10. Resist!

When you post or talk about him, don’t assign his actions to him, assign them to “The Republican Administration,” or “The Republicans.” This will have several effects: the Republican legislators will either have to take responsibility for their association with him or stand up for what some of them don’t like; he will not get the focus of attention he craves.

And use 5 Calls today!

A public service announcement…

And for some musical relief this week, The Morpholinos are at Monterey Court on Thursday (6:30-9) and Dropped By Birds Duo at Whiskey Del Bac on Friday!

Thanks to Sherri Loomis for the image

And now…